Sculpture

By Judith Proctor
Page 2 of 3

The final scramble down into the cavern was a relief. Avon worked his
way down the wall and collapsed at the bottom, abused muscles
screaming out for relief. Gan sat beside him for a minute or so, the
silence around them absolute. In the quiet, Avon was conscious of the
sound of his on breathing, and the almost imperceptible sound of the
water flowing in its
course.

"Water?" Gan
asked.

Avon nodded and got to his feet.
He could use a drink. Squatting down by the water's edge, toes almost
in the water, he scooped up a handful of water. It was cold, but the
flavour was clear and
refreshing.

Gan drank beside him. "It's
flowing faster than
before."

Was it? The stream did seem a
little wider than he recalled. Avon came abruptly to his feet. "We'd
better get moving. If there's been heavy rain, these caverns could
flood."

The thought was not a pleasant
one. It hadn't rained recently near the base, but the stream's
catchment area and the nature of the local geology was largely
unknown. Rain seeping through the rocks from weeks ago, or falling on
a distant tributary, might cause the stream to suddenly become a
river. Flowing underground, its width constrained by the caves, it
would get deeper. How deep, Avon didn't like to guess. He started
walking without waiting to see if Gan was following him. Usually in a
dangerous situation, there was something he could do about it - fight,
argue, attempt to repair what was broken. Here, there was just the
implacable force of nature, and all he could do was flee and hope that
that would be
enough.

The route seemed even longer and
more tortuous than it had when they came in. Crawls through narrow
abandoned watercourses, climbs up slippery rock faces, and the
relentlessly increasing depth of the water when they were forced to
wade through it. There was no doubt now that the water level was
rising. Places where the water had barely come over his boot tops,
now soaked Avon well up his
legs.

He tried his bracelet again, more
from discipline than optimism. The lack of any response came as no
surprise. If Liberator had been able to make contact, they
would have been trying to call him by now. He half turned as he heard
Gan behind him trying his own bracelet. A pointless exercise really,
but there was always the chance that Avon's own bracelet was faulty.
Gan shook his head. No luck there
either.

Avon turned back again, and
slipped. A wet stone skidded from under his foot in the dim light,
and he fell awkwardly. Pain shot through his leg as a rock caught him
under the shin. His torch smashed onto the ground and promptly went
out.

"Avon! Are you all
right?"

He tried to sit up, and his leg
screamed agony. He felt slightly sick, his original sharp retort
dying
unspoken.

There was reproach on Gan's face.
"I've been trying to study. I can't kill, I have have to find some
way to be of
use."

Another convert to Blake's
cause.

"And just how far have your
studies taken you?" Avon asked
suspiciously.

"Not very far yet, but," he added,
sounding surprisingly firm, "I do know a broken bone, and I do know
what to do about
it."

"And if there's nothing to use as
a splint, what does your medical genius say then?" Avon answered
caustically. He almost regretted saying that. Gan was trying to help
him after all.

"We wait," Gan said as though it
was totally obvious.

Wait. Something inside Avon
panicked at the thought. He was sitting in a shallow pool of water
now. If the water rose any further, they would be completely trapped.
"We can't wait," he insisted. "It's too dangerous."

"We don't have any choice. I
could carry you through the larger caverns, but you'd never make it
through the crawlways. Some of the lower sections will be totally
underwater by now. Don't worry, Blake will come for
us."

Blake will come for us, Avon
though sourly. That was terrific. Always assuming that Liberator
was still in one piece, always assuming that Blake could make it
through the caves, always assuming that they didn't drown first. But
Gan had faith in Blake, and Gan would do exactly what Blake would have
have done in similar circumstances: stay in spite of the risk to
himself. Avon found that attitude irritating - he disliked being
obliged to anyone.

Gan fumbled through voluminous
pockets, before finally coming up with one of the Liberator's
healing pads. "Here, let me try this. It won't fix the bone, but it
should take some of the pain away."

Avon refrained from protest as Gan
ripped the leg of his trousers and rocked the pad over the injury. At
least the break was above the top of his boot. The idea of having to
remove the boot without anything to cut the leather was not one he
liked to contemplate. As the pad took effect, the pain subsided to a
dull ache. Water swirled blackly around him, odd bits of debris
floating on the surface. Small whorls and eddies formed around his
feet and where he sat. The cold and wet seeped into his clothing.
Avon
shivered.

"I'll hold you. Just lean on me
and keep your weight on your good leg."

Without waiting for a reply, Gan
leaned down and lifted Avon up as though he were nothing more than a
small child.

Reluctantly, Avon draped one arm
around Gan's neck and allowed the giant to support him around the
waist. Gan was warm, and that, surprisingly was a comfort in itself.
Maybe it was the pain from his leg, or perhaps it was a side effect of
the drug in the pad, whatever it was, Avon felt oddly light headed.
His mind was drifting to other times and other arms around him. Warm,
gentle,
loving.

He really ought to get up and go
to work, but she was there beside him, holding him close, the look on
her face one of teasing affection. She traced a finger gently down
the line of his cheek bone and
smiled.

"Anna." He wasn't even aware that
he had spoken her name out
loud.

"Who?"

Avon awake from his reverie with a
start. The water had risen several centimetres without him even
noticing.

"No one, just someone I knew a
long time ago."

Blake would have pointed out the
inconsistency of that statement, but Gan seemed to accept it. "I knew
someone once," he offered. "She was a little bit like you in some
ways."

Really? Didn't Gan realise that
comparing Avon to his ex-girlfriend wasn't exactly the most generous
of
comparisons.

"I'm flattered," he said
insincerely, and wondered if Gan would notice the
irony.

"Marie was a beta, far brighter
than
me."

"That's not
difficult."

Gan was silent. Avon sighed
inwardly. He'd done it again. Blake or Vila would have bounced right
back with an insult in response, but Gan tended to soak it all up
without retaliating. Actually, thinking about it, Gan did manage a
suitable riposte on occasion - it was just that the occasions tended
to be few and far between. Well, if he tried to be sympathetic for
once, nobody was going to know except for himself and
Gan.

"What was she
like?"

He could hear the enthusiasm in
Gan's voice as he
answered.

"She was bright, enthusiastic,
loved talking and playing games. I never knew what she saw in me."

So what had she seen in slow,
methodical, plodding Gan? Gan who was still supporting him without
complaint, in spite of the burden that Avon's weight must have become.
Avon surprised himself by replying, "Kindness. Understanding.
Loyalty?"

The water wasn't quite up to the
top of his boots, but they had water inside them already, so that was
almost academic. His feet were cold and almost numb. "What was
that?" Gan had said something, but he'd missed it.

"Anna? What kind of a woman was
she?"

So, if they were going to drown
here underground they were going to do it while swooping details of
their lost loves. Why not?